


Between The Rocks & The Valleys

by clockworkrobots



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Depression, Episode Tag, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 09
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:14:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkrobots/pseuds/clockworkrobots
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean and Cas go undercover at the Canyon Valley Wellness Spa. As a couple. </p>
<p>(a.k.a. the episode tag to a 9.13 that doesn’t exist)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between The Rocks & The Valleys

**Author's Note:**

> This is pretty much meant to work as an episode tag imagining the premise of the episode actually included Cas. I didn't want to cover the whole case because I worked under the assumption it played out the same as in the episode! This is pretty much just conversations and consolations we didn't get to see.

 

Their first day undercover at the Canyon Valley Wellness Spa starts off a bit rockier than desired, and not because of any suspect mishap or minor explosion, as might often happen in their line of work. Rather, Dean is... _ansty_.

"This never leaves the building. _Ever,_ " Dean tells Cas, pointing at him in his chef's uniform with a desperate intensity in his eyes. Dean himself is wearing a matching one, and herein lies the problem.

Castiel glances down as his white jacket. "Is that a hope for us to die in the process?" he asks, not understanding what Dean means by _"never leave"_. Castiel had been under the very good impression that they weren't expecting this operation to last more than a week at the utmost.

"No!" Dean balks. "No, I mean  _this_ ," he gestures somewhat frantically between them, imploring Cas to understand him without actually having to say _it_ out loud.

_'It'_ , of course, being the fact that to the outside world at the moment, they are meant to look like a couple. And not just _any_ couple, but apparently a world renowned chef couple who run a successful cooking blog and website together, who have, apparently, just gotten themselves hired at the latest up and coming spa and resort in the area. 

Castiel continues to frown in perpetual confusion. They had very well gone over their respective stories and background, he had thought. The job interview itself had seemed to go rather well, despite Castiel's admitted enduring awkwardness.

"... Us?"

"Right!"

"I don't understand."

Dean groans. "This!" he gesticulates a bit wildly. "That we're--we're impersonating--"

Castiel cocks a brow, sensing where Dean might be headed. "A celebrity chef couple?"

"Yes!" Dean gasps in relief. 

"I didn't know you were so concerned about identity fraud," Castiel says, unable to keep the faint tone of chastisement out of his voice. He hardly thinks this is the time for Dean to review his morals over the necessities of the job.

"What?" Dean frowns, confused as to Cas' conclusion. "I'm not! I mean..." he trails off, but nods emphatically, as if that conveys his true meaning.

"What _do_  you mean? You do this all the time, Dean," Castiel sighs. This isn't even the first time _he's_ gone undercover with Dean, and he can rarely be bothered to do so (he much prefers the direct approach). Dean does this for a _living_.

Dean blinks, as if taken aback, but he collects himself quickly enough. "Right," he says, squaring his shoulders, his whole body tensing up. "You know what, forget it."

And with that, the subject it dropped, thought not, of course, without another one of Castiel's customary frowns.

 

  
***

  
"Dean Troy," Dean introduces himself to the rest of the kitchen staff, which as far as either he or Cas can tell, comprises just one man named Alonzo. "This is my colleague and partner Bill Riker," Dean gestures to Cas without making eye contact.

Alonzo looks thoroughly unimpressed. "Right, uh, so can I go back to work now, or do you need me for anything...?"

Dean blinks in surprise at the guy's indifference. Well. At least he's taking this whole ordeal a lot better than Dean. "Nope," Dean says. "No, no, uh, carry on."

"Well, _he's_ sure gunning for employee of the month," Dean mutters sarcastically to Cas as they get to work themselves.

  
***

  
Their first day goes well enough, even if none of their leads spark up anything. Thankfully, though, the spa provides some pretty nice digs for their employees if they have no where else to stay, and the two large rooms they offer them are a good sight nicer than the crappy motel they'd holed up in the night before. Dean doesn't even flinch at the idea of sharing a room with Cas without Sam, he's just so happy to be able to put his feet up on something that won't dig springs into his ass.

Dean flops down on their queen-size mattress just as Cas shuts the door behind them, sighing at the quick relief of a soft surface beneath his body. It had been a long day.

"Well, that went okay I guess, thank God," Dean says, leaning back against the headboard, not even having bothered to take off his shoes first before kicking them up onto the bedspread. 

"I don't think I enjoyed the cooking as much as you did," Cas says, offering a small smile.

"Ah, you just haven't gotten used to it yet. You will. I bet you got all the recipes in the world stored up there in your head, but that don't mean much if you haven't got the will to make 'em," Dean points out, and then laughs at Cas' increasingly sour face. He knows well how much Cas does not favour things he is not immediately good at. It's a flaw that can have its absolute adorableness on occasion.

Cas narrows his eyes at Dean as he comes around to the other side of the bed, shucking his chef's coat as he goes. "I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," he huffs, though it's without much real accusation.

He sits down on the edge of the bed across from Dean, hands resting on his knees. Dean marvels for a moment at how absurdly _normal_ he looks, as if he really _is_ a chef coming home after a long day, but then shakes himself out of that dangerous train of thought just as quickly as it comes.

As if sensing his inner anxieties, though, Castiel turns to look at him again. "I worried that perhaps you were embarrassed about being seen in a relationship with me because my vessel is a man," he says, harking back to their conversation right before the interview.

This takes Dean aback so abruptly that he smacks the back of his head against the wall above the bed. "What? No! I wasn't--" he sputters, trying to get his bearings. "No," he coughs, avoiding Cas' assessing gaze.

"You're not being terribly convincing," Cas tells him.

"It's not--" Dean starts, but then bites his tongue. As usual, he feels like he's going about this _all wrong_. He swallows down the rise of self-directed bitterness in his throat, and closes his eyes, taking a deep breath before he starts again.

"It's not that you're a  _dude_ , dude. I mean, I used to have hang ups about my sexuality for sure, but not since..." Dean trails off, not quite comfortable yet voicing the regretful yet very real truth of: _'not since my father died'_.

"Well," he sighs, and open his eyes again. "Not for awhile anyway."

"Then what?" Castiel asks, face blank and open, genuinely curious. That's exactly what Dean was afraid of. Accusation he can handle. Rejection... well, it burns and stings, but it's _familiar_ , at least. But _acceptance_ , _want_ to hear him speak, hear his feelings pour forth... it's so strange to hear through the shadows that is his mind right now, that for a few minutes, he can't even speak.

Finally, after several still seconds of silence, Cas, unmoving a hand's reach away on the bed, Dean speaks, low but roughly: "It's  _you_."

"Me?" Castiel's face scrunches up in confusion.

"I..." Dean swallows, amassing what courage he can to clarify for Cas. "It felt weird to pretend to be in a relationship with you, because I--I didn't want to be teased with what I couldn't actually have, okay?" He spits out that last part in a rush, as if desperate to go and hide beneath the covers once it's said. His skin itches, hairs stand on end and pull on the worn, taut threads of his anxious soul. Hiding beneath the covers right now doesn't seem half bad.

"Dean," he hears Cas say, softly but firm. Dean doesn't look at him. He can't. He can't look at Cas now and see the pity on his face, and he's _sure_ it will be there. Hell, Dean pities _himself_. He pities himself for these godforsaken, impossible desires that someone like him will never have and certainly doesn't deserve.

"It's stupid, I know," he manages to bite out. "Forget about it."

" _Dean,_ " Castiel says, pressing harder with the rough, sharp edges of his voice. He sounds closer, too, having shifted up the bed so that his back is almost touching Dean's thigh.

"What?" he grunts, finally turning to him, with solemn, tired eyes. His whole _body_ feels tired nowadays, heavier in a way it hasn't been in years. 

Castiel's gaze is heavy, too, as it rests upon him. "Why do you think you can't have what you want?" he asks, always so straightforward. It takes everything Dean has not to burst out laughing.

Oh, as if Cas doesn't _know?_ Doesn't know Dean ruins everything he touches, doesn't know his love is not a balm but a poison, that brings wrath and bad luck to all it sets its sights upon? Doesn't know that every time Dean thinks he's found something, _someone,_ he knows it's only a matter before they slip through his fingers? Always the _adiós?_

"Look at me, Cas," he scoffs. "Does my life look like an ad for happy endings to you? I'm a hunter. We don't get nice things. We kill monsters so  _other_  people can have nice things."

Cas seems to ponder this for a second, before saying, "So, in all your time hunting, you never encountered a couple who did it together?" 

"Well, yeah, but--"

"Or encouraged people who had once been through hardship to find peace after surviving it?" he continues, undeterred by Dean's protest. "Wouldn't you want that for Sam?"

"Yes, but--"

The corner's of Castiel's mouth twitch, almost as if he wants to smile. "Then why deny this for yourself, too?" 

He means it kindly, but the words only sting.

"Because I don't deserve it!" Dean hisses, only to keep from yelling it out. "I don't deserv _e love_  or _happiness_  or whatever other bullshit I feed people to make myself feel a little bit better after a long day. I don't deserve it! Not after what I've--what I've done. Not after screwing up the world and screwing over everyone that I care about. People like me don't deserve anything after destroying so much."

His hands are balled into fists in the fabric of the top sheets. His body feels like it will fly apart if he lets go. He probably will, and Cas won't even be able to save him, this time.

Castiel twists his waist around further to lay his left hand on Dean's right knee. He does it gently, but the sensation burns right through the fabric of Dean's pants, down to his brittle bones. "Dean, you haven't destroyed the world," he says, moving his face into Dean's view like Dean often does to him to capture his attention, "you  _saved_  it. And you did it all out of your own conviction in believing it was _right._  That families  _mattered_ , that  _everyone_  mattered. _You_ told me this," Castiel implores him to understand. "You told me and convinced me once and for all that _everyone_ was worth saving."

He pauses, and looks down at where his hand rests on Dean's knee cap. "You needn't have convinced me of one thing, though," he says, quieter still. "I always knew  _you_  were worth it. Ever since I first saw your soul, I _knew_." 

Castiel's touch upon his knee is light, but upon those words it burns like fire. Such complements can only exist to taunt him, right? 

Dean lets out a bitter laugh.

"Yeah? Because I was such fucking nightmare case you knew I had to get better some day? Well, sorry to say, pal, but your faith has failed you again."

His shoulders are tense and taut against the wooden headboard, and his neck aches with its awkward position, leaned against the wall above it. But he makes no effort to adjust it; he will suffer through the strains if it means his body remains alert and ready to flee. 

Castiel, however, shakes his head. "No, Dean, you misunderstand. I admit, I have been... If you think you have been awful towards the ones you love, know that you are in good company."

He bows his head in shame, his frown twisting into a sour grimace. Dean's fingers ache to smooth it out, but his hands feel so heavy--they will not lift at all.

"Words cannot express the regrets I have, Dean," he continues, voice grim and full of regret, "for what I've done to you, to Sam, to my siblings... to the world. Do not forget I existed for thousands of years before you met me as well. Do you think those years were bloodless? Lossless? Your bible depicts angels as fearsome for a reason. The things I was ordered to do... "

"Yeah, but you were _ordered,_ " Dean interjects. "And who--who knows what other shit went on when you were under Naomi's hammer! _Me_ though? My shit's _all_ on me." Not even his raw voice can convey the bitterness of his heart, in that moment. Not all the words in the English language could convey the proper weight of regret.

Castiel, though, remains determine. His stare sharpens, blue eyes wide and pleading.

"Were you not raised as a soldier as well, Dean? Your father was not a kind man when it came to raising children. You were raised as a surrogate parent for Sam and a soldier under your father's command at the same time. You can't allow me lenience for operating under orders and not give yourself the same. If not  _more._  You were just a boy and asked to live a life and shoulder responsibilities that even _adults_ cannot handle."

Dean scoffs. "So you're saying of course I was gonna be a failure? It was always against me anyway?"

"No, I'm saying--" Castiel grunts in frustration. "I'm saying that you've grown into a man who loves _so much_ , and would give _so much_ to others, despite the horrors that you've seen. That is a _miracle_ , Dean."

He speaks with conviction, as a witness would. His voice is mighty and holy and Dean _wishes_ he could bask in it. He's desperate to deserve the praises flowing from Cas' mouth, but something in his mind stops him from seizing the light of him. He remains still.

"You know," Cas continues, "humans sometimes think of angels as miracles. But I think we've both seen what a fallacy that can be. I think it is really you.  _You_  are the miracle. You are miraculous, divine."

There is a reverence to his voice, a fragile, tender thing, but no less sure for it. It's fragile because it wavers in his throat, a precious admission of how exactly much Dean _means_ to him. Dean closes his eyes, to prevent the stinging at the corners of them from springing forth into tears.

"Then why don't I feel like it?" his voice breaks. "Why do I have so much... emptiness inside me? If I'm so... _'good,'_  then why don't I feel it?"

"Healing takes time, Dean," Castiel tells him solemnly, talking at the same time about his own sorrow. "And you haven't been given much of a break for it."

"Yeah, well, that's the thing," Dean laughs, though it is entirely mirthless. It's self-mocking, if anything. "Doubt I ever will."

"If I was... If things were different," Cas begins, "if I hadn't succumbed to Metatron's scheme, I would say at the very least that peace would be waiting for you in heaven. But I don't know what heaven even looks like now."

He looks so sorry to admit it, so lonesome and lost as Dean, too, feels, that Dean can't help but cut him a break. "So I guess we're just a couple of sorry dudes stuck together going nowhere, huh?" he chuckles, echoing his words from days ago. He cracks a small smile like he did then, too. At least if they're going to be miserable, they can do it together. They always did have that going for them. 

Cas offers a familiar small smile in return. "Not nowhere, I don't think. Just..." he ponders, "nowhere we've ever been. Uncharted territory, you might say."

Dean raises his brow. "That sounds ominous."

"That might just be my general tone of voice, I'm told," Cas deadpans.

"Haha, who told you that, Sam?" Dean laughs, and at Cas' short nod says, "Yeah, well, he was right. You're pretty... intense."

Cas' forehead creases, and the image brings such a wave of affection to Dean's chest that can't help but blush a little. Hopefully the reddening of his cheeks goes noticed.

"Is that good or bad?" Cas asks.

"Depends. You can be kinda scary when you want to. Hell, even when you're trying to be  _nice_  you're kinda scary. You come on so strong."

His friend's frown deepens. "That doesn't sound too favourable."

"Well, it _is_  convincing, at least," Dean gives him as a concession, and he's not lying. Cas can be a full on dick, sometimes, but Dean never truly doubts his sincerity. Cas may make mistakes, but the problem was always that he believed in those mistakes too much to turn back.

"I haven't entirely convinced you, though," Castiel notes. His face still holds a faint smile, but his eyes carry a sad glaze to them, a yearning one.

"What can I say, I'm a tough egg to crack," Dean drawls, trying to hide the edge of guilt in his voice, that seers through his chest.

Maybe Cas seems to sense it anyway, because he says diplomatically, "Then perhaps we should forget it for tonight."

"Mmm," Dean agrees, happy to let the heavy conversation go. He's too tired from their day really to have even started this conversation at all, and he's _definitely_ too tired to keep up with where it may lead. "We could head down and find Sam, see what he's up to."

"If he has any sense he's probably sleeping."

"If he was cool he _wouldn't be_ " Dean declares, like the righteously silly older brother he sometimes feels allowed to be. If only he ever had to feel responsible for Sam's purported  _coolness_. "So yeah, he probably is."

"That means _we're_ cool?" Castiel then determines, with a light, teasing gaze.

Dean grins. "Hell  _yeah_  it means we're cool."

Dean is, of course, then asleep within the next 20 minutes. It's so content and dreamless that the next morning he doesn't even remember that Cas' hand never left his knee. 

  
***

  
The investigation takes the necessary stall the next day, too, when Sam must teach several yoga classes in the morning for the sake of his own cover. Dean can't wait to see him at lunch to make fun of him, because though he has nothing against yoga itself, his brother _teaching a class of it_ definitely _is_ hilarious.

Though to be fair, Dean thinks _anything_ that requires wearing shorts is pretty hilarious.

His morning then, is spent mostly biding his time with Cas until they can meet up with Sam and swap intel that they've gathered. 'Biding his time', of course, meaning 'preserving his cover of being a professional chef', which means a hell of a lot of prep for a lunch that can feed all of the spa's guests. It's all _healthy shit_ , too, which makes Dean a little bit uneasy. He likes variety as much as the next guy, no matter what Sam says, but by variety he really means _variety_. but here, there's hardly any meat to bee found in the kitchen's fridges at all. This left Dean with a very strong scowl for most of the morning, as he began helping Cas prepare various vegetable and tofu based meals.

As they approach lunch however, Cas proves to be a very worthy distraction.

"Yesterday, when were were--when I brought up that you seemed uncomfortable with us pretending to be a couple, you said that what bothered you was not that we presented as a homosexual couple, but that it was an image of something you knew you could never have," Castiel says out of the blue as they're preparing the vegetables for the lunch salad.

"Yeah..." Dean says, wary of where this is headed, and so out in the open out here in the kitchen, too. Granted, they are the only ones in here, but it's not _Dean's_ kitchen, it's not Dean's _home_. The room may be almost empty, but he can't help feeling exposed.

"Did you mean specifically with me?"

"Way to beat around the bush, Cas," Dean huffs by way of evasion, not looking up from his cutting board.

"Dean," Castiel implores.

"I--" Dean begins with a denial on the tip of his tongues, but then quickly bites it back. They're only _pretending_ out here, right? What happens in Canyon Valley stays in Canyon Valley, and all that jazz? Might as well go for it, he mentally shrugs, and then leaps off the cliff. "Yeah, okay, yeah. I meant... With you, or whatever."

"Or whatever."

"Fuck, okay, I don't know, Cas!" Dean defends automatically as he looks up at Cas, first setting his knife down so that he doesn't wave it around dangerously. Hey, he knows his kitchen etiquette.

"What do you want from me? To say I've had... fucking _dreams_ about fucking you since we met? That when you died what was the worst wasn't the _nightmares_ , it was waking up from a dream where you were _alive_ and knowing it wasn't real? That I..."

"What?" Cas prompts.

Dean doesn't want to say this here. Not in this too bright and too white kitchen, and hell, not in this _place_. He's not even supposed to be himself here, so how can he be honest about _anything?_

Suddenly, with a vicious, visceral pang in his stomach, he wishes he was home. He wishes he was back at the bunker with his room mere steps away, and if everything went wrong he could at least lay down on his bed, with soft sheets that will hold him. He wishes everything was different, and that he didn't hate himself for wanting to be happy. _Nothing is fair in love and war, actually_ , he thinks bitterly.

He can't resist blurting it out though, not under that _stare_ , that blue-eyed stare of Castiel's that always feels like it's peeling apart his soul.

"That when I said 'I need you' I mean _with me,"_ he says, _"_ I mean I _want_ you. I've wanted you--" he huffs, looks down at his feet.

_'I've wanted you for years,'_ was that what he was going to say? Somehow that feels like lying. Five years isn't enough to contain all his longing. 

He shakes his head. "God, too long."

When he raises his gaze again he sees that Cas' brow has creased into a concerned frown. "And you always thought I was out of reach?" he asks, and Dean almost wants to laugh in his face at that; he _can't_ be that oblivious. But clearly he is. There's nothing but concerned curiosity in his eyes.

"Most of the time you were, man," Dean accuses. "Literally."

Cas' shoulders slump as he processes this, probably flicking through every broken conversation they've ever had in his head. A defeated looks shrouds his face, and Dean knows intimately how he feels. This is something he's been wrestling with for _years_ \--Cas leaving and never staying--and he's never quite been able to deal with it. Being able to say goodbye to him in that bar before the sky fell down on them was a big step, but still, he's _Dean Winchester_. He'll always wonder what exactly it is about him that sends people away.

Dean almost expects Cas to deny it, almost _wants_ him too, because fighting has always been easier for them than making up, but amazingly, he _doesn't._

Instead, he takes a step closer.

"I'm sorry, Dean," he says, when he is only inches away, eyes pleading with him to understand his sorrow, his regret. Dean doesn't know if it's the colour of his eyes, fucking _blue_ like the last oasis full of water, or the fact that it's _Cas,_ but he always feels so _surrounded_ by the look. Not that he's drowning, exactly, but like he'd been swimming for a long time, and was finally given a hand up to breathe. His nerves always fizzle, as he teeters off balance, but held by Cas' gaze, he always lands on his feet.

"Yeah, well, I'm sorry too. I'm sorry, to..." Dean trails off, not even knowing what to say. _'I'm sorry for everything?'_ "... Unload all of that on you."

The twist of Cas' mouth turns away from rueful. He licks his lips and says, "I'm not sorry for that."

Dean blinks. Well, _that_ hadn't been the rejection he had been expecting. "What?" he snaps, because he cannot of heard right.

"I'm sorry I've cause you undue pain by... my foolishness," Castiel says, "but I'm not sorry to know you care about me, Dean."

Now that _does_ make Dean laugh a bit, though in his heightened, anxious state, it comes out a bit as an absurd giggle. _Care?_ Oh, if only Dean were burdened by _caring_. No, it's so much worse than that. Wonderful, in some ways, but _so_ much worse.

"I don't just _care_ , Cas, I want--You make me want impossible things," he admits, looking down at his shoes. God, what a stupid shit he's being, he inwardly berates himself. Saying all this in the middle of cooking tofu and tracking down a monster that eats fat tissue and wearing a fucking _hair net_. He imagines his life as some cosmic joke, but one where God passed out before he could write the punch line.

He's shaken out of this destructive train of thought, though, with a hand upon his shoulder. His head whips up, and he finds Cas' lips only a breath away from his own. He takes a shuddered breath.

"And you make me want to give them to you," Cas says, voice low. The palm of his hand on Dean's shoulder is warm, and for a second Dean forgets that he no longer has the imprint of that hand on his shoulder, imagines it there still. He imagines Cas gripping him tight and putting all the charred pieces of him back together. For a moment he forgets that they're standing in the middle of a strange kitchen in a strange place, pretending to be people they're not, and he's _Dean Winchester_ , standing before _Castiel,_ Angel of the Lord. But more importantly his _friend_.

"What?" he croaks, swaying into the touch despite himself. "You're joking," he gives Cas a last out. "Don't fuck with me on this, man."

Cas remains relentless, gaze and grip unwavering. "If I've been foolish, then maybe we both have. I've loved you for a very long time, Dean. I've died and been reborn loving you."

It's a wonder Dean just does't dissolve there on the floor.

_Love?_ The words compose themselves right in Dean's brain, but it must be _wrong_ that they _feel_ so right. Is this the punchline? If it is, Dean doesn't quite know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe both would be appropriate. His life is falling apart be something in Castiel still wants to hold him. Maybe it _is_ a fucking miracle.

His voice must sound unbelievably husky and hoarse when he says, "What did I say about coming on strong?"

Cas, the bastard, has the gall to _smirk_. Dean instantly wants to kiss it off him. "You said I was convincing." 

"Yeah."

"And do you believe me?"

He licks his lips. "Only if you say it again," he says in a near whisper, feeling somewhat bold and somewhat desperate to imprint Cas' words on his very skin.

"I love you, Dean," Cas says for him, as his other hand omves up to cup Dean's face. "I love you, I have loved you, I will love you still."

" _Cas,_ " Dean chokes out, breathless and speechless and _alive_. He leans his cheek into Cas' touch, and tries to mould himself into the contours of his hand. To be under such good hands has to _mean_ something, he thinks. He doesn't know what, exactly, but right now, in this moment, he wonders if it means he's _not alone_. God, after so long living with a soul-deep loneliness, the feeling is too much.

"Yes?"

Dean manages a breathy chuckle. "That wasn't a question."

Cas sets his jaw in understanding, and then says, "Well, this still is my answer," and kisses him.

There are no fireworks that go off, no fervent, unquenchable arousal awoken, and Dean does not feel like he's falling. No, he feels none of those fantastical things, for his life is too fantastical as it is. Instead, he feels finally like his feet touch the ground. He feels _caught,_ like a fish on a wire, pulled towards the alluring, dangerous promise of Cas' boat.

He does not feel on fire, because Castiel's lips and mouth are warm welcoming, quenching all of the flames and fires burning holes in Dean's head. He feels, for the first time, in a long time, _afloat_. There's nothing more euphoric for a drowning, man to feel, Dean thinks. There's nothing more impossible than that moment he breaks the surface, nothing more like taking the much needed oxygen straight from Cas' lungs into his.

They kiss in the middle of a kitchen in hair nets and chef's coats, and Dean thinks for a glorious second that there's nowhere else he'd rather be. 

  
***

  
Dean doesn't expect the outcome of the case that he gets, but it has _nothing_ on the bombshell that Sam lands on him once they've tied up their loose ends at Canyon Valley--Dean exchanging phone numbers with Sheriff Donna for good luck--and all three of them pack it in back to Kansas. He _should_ have seen it coming really, he berates himself on the long back to his bedroom where Cas awaits, the way that they've frayed the past few weeks, the way that Sam looked at him the other day when he implied it might be awhile before they can be the brothers they were. Or not--that was Sam's problem, wasn't it? ' _The brothers they were'_ wasn't working anymore.

The problem aching at the core of him is that Dean doesn't know how to _be_ anything else.

He tells as much to Cas when he finds the guy sitting on the edge of his mattress in his bedroom. They haven't gotten _that_ far yet, as the position might suggest, not after their kiss in the kitchens--they got too distracted by the Peruvian siblings extraordinaire after that. But Dean does like the promise the image gives him when he stumbles upon it. Moreover, he likes that Cas hasn't left yet. He _stayed_. 

Silently, Dean sits down on the bed next to him. Not too close--just enough for their knees to touch when Dean spreads out his thighs, and lets his head fall into his hands between them. He feels too empty to cry. 

It's awhile before Cas speaks, or it seems like it, the way the silence constricts around him, the way he feels simultaneously too big and too small for his skin.

"I believe the common question in instances like this is: 'Do you want to talk about it?'" he says, with a small smile to denote that he's faking the ignorance of human custom. If Dean were in a better mood, he might laugh and tease him, but not tonight. Not now, after everything that's crumbled between his fingers.

"Sam said--" he begins as he lifts his head, but his throat is too tight. He swallows harsly and starts again. "Sam said I was afraid of losing him not because of him, but because I was afraid of being alone."

Cas looks at him evenly, face impassive. It's annoyingly free of judgment or outward sympathy, and Dean doesn't know which he regrets more. "And do you think that's true?" he asks.

"I--" he shakes his head, looks down at his hands in his lap. "I don't know anymore, I guess. I don't think--I don't think he meant to say that it's not that I don't want to lose him because I love him." At least Dean _hopes_. He _needs_ to, or else everything in this too-long life has been for naught. "But that's what it felt like."

There is a hand, then, upon his back. Dean looks up in surprise to find it's Cas'. Of course it couldn't be anyone _but_ him, but Cas is rarely the one to offer physical affection first. _Maybe he's learned how to be human after all_ , Dean thinks at first, but then corrects himself. Touch is hardly a human trait, really. _No, he's just learned me._  

He leans into the spread of fingers on his back, they don't move, but Dean's grateful for that too. Castiel's fingers, long and sturdy, simply feel like they're holding Dean up.

"I'm sure he knows that's not true," Cas says.

"Does he, though?" Dean wonders with resignation. "He says I can't let him go because I'm afraid of being alone, but that's not--that's not it either. Being alone implies..." Dean closes his eyes and sighs heavily. "Being alone implies having only yourself. If Sammy died... I don't think I'd even have that."

"You're afraid losing Sam will mean losing yourself at the same time," Cas offers as insight.

"Well, yeah," Dean turns to face him. "I mean, what else am I for, Cas? Since I was four years old my job has been to look after him. What else _am_ I if I can't?" He doesn't even know if he wants the answer. Nightmares of Hell still haunt him enough, and nightmares of that barren future he once visited courtesy of Zachariah, too. He doesn't want to think about what he will be once absence eats him up. He's already seen the result, and it wakes him up in sweat at night. Sure, it might be a bit different, this time around, but how different, _really?_  Dean doesn't believe in fate, but he does believe in damnation.

He also believes in salvation, he just thinks he passed by that turn off long ago.

"You'll still be Dean Winchester," Cas tells him, as if this is a solid, indesputible fact. Dean doesn't know about that.

"Yeah?" he scoffs. "Who the fuck is he without a family?"

"If you lost Sam, you'd still have me. You'd still have--"

Dean has to cut him off there. "No offence, Cas, but you haven't exactly been the biggest mainstay in my life since I've known you. I've lost you, too." He doesn't mean to rub salt in the wound of Cas' guilt, too, on top of his own, especially since he knows the guy's apologised more than he ever needed to, really, for Dean to forgive him. He'll _always_ forgive Cas, and maybe that's a weakness, but Dean hardly cares. He's too full of weakness in his opinion to get worked up about just one. Still, Cas visibly winces, drops his hand from Dean's back, and looks down.

"You're right. I'm sorry."

Dean wishes his hand would come back. "I've tried, you know," he says. "To get out. To move on. With Lisa..." he grimaces at himself. "Lisa was too good for me."

Castiel looks back at him, eyes narrowed enough to look assesing, calculating. There's something so _familiar_ to it that Dean doesn't squirm at all. "You're afraid of losing Sam because you're afraid you'll have nothing left after," he observes, "but you're also afraid you don't deserve to find something else after."

He lets out a hollow laugh. "Sounds about right."

Suddenly, Cas grabs on of his idle hands, holding in his own like he makes to take Dean somewhere. Maybe he _is_.

"You _do_ deserve it, though, Dean," Cas says. "You give so much for others; you deserve something of comfort given back to you, too."

Dean closes his eyes, soaking up Cas' closeness, his words that he doesn't think he deserves but wants to bask in anyway. He wants to feel Cas' fine words and fine hands all over his skin.

"I wish I could believe you."

The tightness of Cas' grip lessens, but he does not let Dean's hand drop. "Well, perhaps that wish is the first step." 

  
***

  
Dean is not one for words after that. He grabs Cas' face and pulls it fast against his own, like he's wanted to do again since the first time they kissed. Like he's wanted to do for years.

He pulls him close and does not pause to marvel at the fact that he has _Cas_ , in his arms and on his bed. He just thinks about all the points at which their bodies touch, bound too much in clothing. Cas grunts against his mouth, lips plying open in soft, full movements that leave Dean thirstier and thirstier for more. Cas kisses with _purpose_ , like he's partipicating in a performance test, all skill but no finesse. It's nothing to Dean, though--Cas' enthusiasm is all he needs. Inexperience means Cas doesn't quite know how to move so that his stubble doesn't scratch all over Dean's face, but Dean doesn't mind; he loves the feeling of being rubbed raw by Cas. He loves it _so much_.

He doesn't know how to _tell_ Cas that, and it frustrates him, but he does know how to _show_ it. He's never really been able to wipe his heart off his sleeve, no matter how much concealer he may have needed under his father's watch. In the orange light of his bedroom, Dean's heart beats fast and hard, as his cock grows hard, too.

His heart beats and his head thrums with the feeling of _Cas, Cas, Cas_.

  
***

  
"So much of your life has been others trying to mark you," Cas says after, when they're both naked and sated, for now. Both of their bodies are still sweat-slicked, and Dean only bothered to leave the messed up sheets of the bed once, to get a wet cloth from the sink in the corner and wipe their stomachs clean before any come had a chance to dry uncomfortably. After, he crawled back into bed with Cas, and sunk into his pillow as wrapped each other in tired and grateful arms.

Cas traces the lines of Dean's anti-possession tattoo with a quiet reverence. He hasn't said anything about the mark on his forearm yet, but Dean knows he saw it. He's wary of what Cas' hidden opinion of it is, but then again, maybe Cain managed to keep it so obscure he doesn't even know what it is at all.

"I'm sorry I've been complicit in that," he continues.

"You didn't have a choice though, right?"

Cas' hand pauses in its idle movements. "I did, actually," he says, with a small frown, looking down to where his fingertips connect to Dean's bare chest.

"What do you mean?"

He splays his hand out over Dean's breast, as if over his heart. He raises his gaze to meet Dean's. "I chose to be the one, out of all of my garrison that descended down for you, to be the one to raise you. I volunteered."

Dean doesn't know what to say to that.

He hadn't thought about that in years, if he's honest, the context of Cas saving him. After heaven's douchery was revealed once and for all, he sort of just assumed it was a job Zachariah _forced_ Cas to take. But Cas had _volunteered?_  It's hard to imagine, an angel falling down to Hell for him. It's hard to imagine, but then again, so much about Cas has shirked his expectations about the impossible. "Huh," he says eloquently, trying to process it all.

"I don't always make good choices, Dean," Cas says, shifting closer to place a kiss on Dean's cheek, close to his ear. His voice is almost a whisper, but its sound is _piercing_.

"I know," he says. "But choosing you... That I don't regret."


End file.
